


i am not young enough to know everything

by nevernevergirl



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, ships are there but not main focus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-03 04:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13333545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevernevergirl/pseuds/nevernevergirl
Summary: There's not much of an endgame after your parents have you framed for murder. The aftermath of running, or: disaster children trying (failing?) to cope.Post- Season 1 finale.





	1. Gert (Day 1)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm obsessed with how much of an emotional shitshow these poor kids are going to be, and we're probably going to have to wait a year for it in canon, so here's my coping mechanism. thanks to sarah, my irl gert, for the reassurance. planning on adding chapters for the rest of the kiddos' pov later, but the gert section got a lot longer than I expected.

Running away involves a lot more actual _running_ than Gert would have thought.

 

Granted, it’s not like she’s thought about it that much, considering it hadn’t really been in the cards until about 36 hours ago. And, okay, being framed for kidnapping and murder probably counted as extenuating circumstances contributing to a skewed perspective. Still.

 

 _Fuck_ , her legs feel like lead and her lungs are going to explode. She wonders if Old Lace would give her a piggyback ride.

 

Chase is at the front—like, way way way in front of her, with the others in between, and they’re all following his lead. Logically, she knows he’s getting them as far away from anyone who might have seen them at the bus station as possible, but emotionally, she hates his stupid lax bro lung capacity.

 

Finally, _finally_ , they stop. They’re huddled in an alley, and she knows—they all know—it’s just for long enough to catch their breath.

 

She leans against the brick wall, panting and too tired to care how dumb she looks. Nico’s next to her, their shoulders pressing together. She lets it ground her, leaning her head against Nico’s shoulder.

 

“Can we kill Chase? If we kill Chase, can we just power walk next time?” Nico murmurs, wryly, shifting a little for Gert to lean on her. Gert laughs a little, and it kind of hurts her chest.

 

“I was considering it,” she says. “We’re already murder suspects. Apparently.”

 

“Thanks for leading us to safety, Chase,” he says, pitching his voice up to an awful whiney thing. “You’re my hero.”

 

“Is that supposed to be me?” Gert raises her eyebrows. “Terrible.”

 

He smirks like an asshole, and she tries to let it distract her heart and hormones like it usually does. It almost works.

 

“Maybe I should go back,” Molly says, quietly. She’s sitting on the ground, knees pulled up to her chest and Old Lace’s tail curled around her. “I could tell them I wasn’t kidnapped, and maybe convince the police not to look for you guys.”

 

“No _way_ ,” Gert says, sharply. “Absolutely not, Molly.”

 

“Like hell you are,” Chase crosses his arms, glaring a little.

 

“No one else is sacrificing themselves,” Nico says, glancing at Karolina.

 

“It’s not safe, Molly,” Karolina says, placatingly. Molly sighs, leaning back against Old Lace.

 

“I was just trying to help,” she mumbles.

 

“It wouldn’t work, even if we were willing to risk it. Which we’re not,” Alex mutters. He’s pacing now, and it’s kind of calming, weirdly enough? Alex has been the one with the real plans during this whole miserable disaster fest, even the stupid ones, and Gert’s pretty sure she’d take anything at this point. “Even if you could convince the police we’re innocent, our parents will just try something else, and you’d be stuck there.”

 

“So what are we doing?” Chase asks, already shouldering his bag.

 

“We have enough money to last us for awhile, if we’re careful. But the bus is out,” Alex says, sighing. “So are trains, or anything we can’t ditch immediately if someone spots us.”

 

“We can’t go back to the van,” Karolina says, frowning. “It literally says Church of Gibborim on the side, we’d be caught before we could get out of this neighborhood.”

 

“Unless they assume we’re not stupid enough to try that,” Nico says.

 

Gert shakes her head. “Come on, we can’t count on that.”

 

“I’m not saying that’s a good idea, but we can’t exactly take Lyft,” Chase says, wryly.

 

“The dinosaur probably won’t fit in the van anyway,” Alex glances at Gert. She glares at him.

 

“Old Lace stays,” she says, firmly. “We already tried letting her go, and it _sucked,_  okay? And she just found me again anyway. We have a connection.”

 

“Nobody’s taking Old Lace, Gert.” Karolina places a hand on her shoulder, giving her a small smile. “We’ll figure something out for _all_ of us, okay?”

 

Gert closes her eyes and tries to count to ten. She get to three, which, under the circumstances, is probably pretty good.

 

“What are we going to figure out, Kare?” she snaps, pulling away from Nico and pushing herself off of the wall. “What are we supposed to _do_?”

 

“That’s what we’re—”

 

“No, Alex,” she yells, stomping her foot a little. She’s embarrassed even as she does it, but she can’t stop herself. “What are we supposed to, like. Long term? What’s our endgame here? We run, and then what? How do we stop this?”

 

Alex stares at her, silently. Chase takes a step toward her, but stops when she shakes her head.

 

“We don’t,” Nico’s voice is low, and she’s not looking at any of them. “I mean, we’ve got to be realistic, right? There’s not exactly a statute of limitations on murder charges.”

 

“Or kidnapping, probably,” Molly mutters, bitterly. “This is so _stupid_. I’m not _kidnapped_.”

 

“And it’s not like we can expose our parents now,” Chase sighs, looking down and kicking at the ground a little. “I was an idiot, guys. Sorry.”

 

“Honestly, I’m not sure how much the video would help now,” Alex says, and Gert raises an eyebrow. Chase looks up, surprised. “I mean, yeah, it would be nice leverage, but we already know they have the cops in their pockets. And now we know it’s bigger than just the sacrifices.”

 

“The tape wouldn’t stop Jonah,” Karolina says, her voice tight. “It might just piss him off more.”

 

“Great,” Gert throws her hands up. “That was a really nice overview of how screwed we are, thanks! Still doesn’t answer the question!”

 

“This is it, Gert. This is our life now,” Alex sighs, rubbing his face. “No more school, no more clubs, no more going home and saving the world. Running is the plan. Indefinitely.”

 

“That’s not a plan, that’s an unsustainable action,” she mumbles. She hates how small and young her voice sounds, but her chest feels so _tight_.

 

“Here’s one,” Nico sighs. “Try not to die.”

 

Chase snorts. “Nice rallying cry.”

 

“Accurate, at least,” Alex sighs.

 

“I’m cool with not dying,” Molly says.

 

Gert slumps her shoulders. Karolina gently presses a bottle of water into her hands. She must have managed to grab snacks at the station; it’s still sort of cold, and it feels nice against her skin.

 

“I guess we can work with that,” she mumbles.


	2. Karolina (Day 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karolina has a nightmare. Mentions of Deanoru and Gertchase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank y'all for all of your nice comments so far, I'm so glad you're all liking it!

She’s at church. She’s not sure what day it is—can’t remember waking up this morning or getting here or picking out the lacy white dress she’s wearing, but her mother is at the podium, beaming like always, so everything is going to be okay. 

 

Her friends are in the front row, even Gert—she knows that should probably be weird, but she’s just glad they’re here, all of them. It makes everything feel like it’s going to be okay, the same way her mom reciting her grandfather’s words does. She stands in front of the congregation and grins at her friends, but especially at Nico. 

 

Nico frowns; they’re all frowning, but especially Nico. Karolina thinks she hears singing, somewhere in the background. Gibborim doesn’t really have hymns, so that’s weird, but her friends are here, and her mom is speaking in her normal calm and even tone, so everything is going to be okay. 

 

Mom holds out her hand, and Karolina steps forward and takes it. Her father is there, too—at first, she thinks he’s frowning, but then it looks more like a grin. 

 

Okay. That’s weird.

 

“Come,” her mom says. “Let’s show them the light.” 

 

Suddenly, she thinks maybe she shouldn’t have taken her mom’s hand. She didn’t notice, but she’s wearing a red robe, and that’s not her dad beside her, it’s Jonah. He’s grinning and showing his teeth.

 

“Show them the light, Karolina,” he says—demands.

 

She doesn’t want to. Her lacy white dress suddenly feels like it’s made of hundred ton steel; she’s heavy and anchored to this spot with her mother’s arm wrapped tightly around her wrist now, just above where her bracelet sits. She turns to her friends; maybe Molly can help, or Chase, or Nico.

 

Nico isn’t frowning anymore. She’s not even there. Destiny is there instead, and she’s screaming.

 

She looks out at the rest of the congregation, but no one else is there: it’s just Destiny screaming in every seat. 

 

This isn’t right, this isn’t right, this isn’t  _ right _ . 

 

Someone is still singing:  _ Just you and me, in a floating sea in the air. What’s left below? We’ll never know. _ Something dull is pressing against her back. There’s something off here, something that she’s missing. 

 

“Karolina,” Jonah says, like her name is a threat. He reaches for her bracelet; she tries to yank her arm back, but her mom is holding it steady. 

 

She feels warm, like she always does when she has the lights, but it feels wrong this time.

 

“Karolina!”

 

She snaps awake at the sound of her voice, for real this time. Right. She’s not at church. She’s with her friends, and that dull ache is Chase’s knee digging into her back. That’s Nico, saying her name and shaking her shoulder.

 

It was just a dream. 

 

She takes a deep breath. “Hey. Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

 

She’s not the first one to have a nightmare; honestly, they haven’t gotten through a night yet without at least three of them waking up at some point. But the way Nico’s looking up at her still makes her chest ache a little.

 

“It’s fine,” Nico says, reaching out and pushing a lock of Karolina’s hair behind her ear; Karolina smiles. “It’s just...you were sort of glowing, in your sleep.”

 

“Maybe her bracelet got knocked off?” Alex mutters, his voice still heavy with sleep. Karolina startles a little, finally noticing that the rest of her friends are awake, too. She glances at her wrist, which is, in fact, missing her bracelet. Before she can really start to panic, Chase’s arm shoots up, her bracelet in his hand.

 

“I’ve got it, it fell over here.” He’s lying horizontally at the front of the tent they’d found at a Goodwill two days ago, his head resting against Gert’s thigh. He tosses her bracelet over, and she catches it, managing a small smile. 

 

“Thanks. You were kneeing me in the back again, by the way,” she says, slipping her bracelet back on.

 

“My knee bothers you, but literally glowing in the dark didn’t wake you up?”

 

“Kids,” Gert says, and Karolina can’t totally make out her face, but she’s pretty sure she’s rolling her eyes. “We’re in a tent built for, like. Four people max. Suck it up.”

 

“You pushed me down here because you said my elbow was in your face.”

 

“Psh.”

 

Alex groans. “If this is your antagonistic version of foreplay, I’m formally requesting you take it outside.”

 

Gert says “Ugh, gross, not in front of my dinosaur,” at the same time Chase says “Shut  _ up _ , Wilder.” Nico snorts, and Karolina grins widely. 

 

“Did you have a nightmare, Karolina?” Molly asks. Karolina can just barely see her curled up on Gert’s other side. The tent gets quiet, and Nico shifts a little closer, lacing their fingers together. 

 

“Yeah,” she says, sighing. “It’s not really a big deal, though.”

 

“Was it about—”

 

“Molly!” Gert says, sharply. “She doesn’t have to talk about it if she doesn’t want to. None of us ever have to.”

 

“No, it’s okay, Gert,” she sighs, staring up at the tent’s ceiling. “I have something I need to tell you guys. About what happened before Chase and Molly found me.”

 

She hasn’t really talked about what happened at the church; she hasn’t wanted to say it out loud. But she’s here with these people, her friends—the only people she feels remotely safe with right now. They’re probably the only people who will make her feel safe ever again. She squeezes Nico’s hand for courage.

 

“I, um. Found something out. About why I can do what I do,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Jonah’s my father. Apparently.”

 

She hasn’t said it out loud yet. It feels like it’s just hanging there, and none of them are  _ saying _ anything.

 

“Really, guys? Nothing?”

 

“Well,” Gert says, carefully. “Look, it’s not like we’ve talked about it or anything, but I think we all kind of—”

 

“He can do what you do, Karo,” Nico says. Her voice sounds so  _ kind _ . “We didn’t  _ know _ he was your dad, but we figured—”

 

“That I’m like him,” she mumbles, closing her eyes. “Why didn’t anyone say anything?”

“We didn’t think you wanted to talk about it,” Chase says, quietly.

 

She doesn’t know what to do with that information, maybe even less than she knows how to process that Frank Dean isn’t her dad. They  _ knew _ . They knew and they were either too freaked out to say anything, or it actually didn’t bother them.

 

“You’re not,” Nico says, suddenly. “Like him. I mean, yeah, fine, you have the same whole magic light power thing. But he’s evil, like our parents, and you’re one of us.”

 

Karolina takes a deep breath. 

 

“Was someone singing earlier?” she asks, quietly. “I thought I heard singing.”

 

“Gert was,” Molly says. “I woke up before you did, and I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I asked her to.”

 

Karolina nods. “Can you do it again, Gert?”

 

“What? No, you guys don’t want—”

 

“It sounded really nice,” Chase says. Gert makes an unidentifiable noise that sends Molly into a fit of laughter.

 

“Jesus,” Alex mutters, but Karolina’s pretty sure he’s grinning.

 

“Please, Gert,” she says, turning on her side and curling against Nico, who plays with her hair idly. It feels nice.

 

“Fine. Okay. If any of you bring this up in the morning, I’m letting Old Lace take a shit in your bag.”

 

“Deal.”

 

Chase kicks in his sleep, and Molly talks in hers, and Old Lace is going to wake them up at the crack of dawn, but she falls asleep to a lullaby surrounded by people she trusts who trust her back, and it feels precious and good and right. 


	3. Chase (Day 9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chase picks a fight and grapples with his Feelings™. Increased Gert/Chase content in this one, kiddos.

If he had to put money on it, Chase honestly would have bet he’d have been the first to do something indescribably dumb while they were on the run. He knows he’s not completely stupid, and it’s not like he’d ever intentionally put any of his friends in danger, but yeah, sure, he’ll own up to being an impulsive idiot.

 

When it turns out to be Alex who makes the first truly idiotic move, it’s sort of satisfying for a full five seconds before Chase realizes that little shithead stole a fucking car. When he finds out it’s not just a car, but his dad’s fucking Leapfrog, his heart goes from terrified beating to furious pounding so fast he feels dizzy.

 

“Are you fucking insane?”

 

Alex stiffens defensively, and he hears Nico mutter _here they go_. He curls his fingers into a fist at his side and tries to count to ten, hoping it’ll work to calm him down this time.

 

“I think we both know the level of tech on this thing is going to come in handy. And you said yourself that it’s got extra trunk space, and, you know, we have a dinosaur, so–”

 

Yeah, fuck counting to ten. He shakes his head in disbelief.

 

“Are you seriously joking right now?” he snaps. “He puts every single one of us at risk, and he’s got jokes. That’s fucking great, Wilder.”

 

“Oh, like you’re one to talk about putting us at risk,” Alex snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Destroyed any evidence lately?”

 

Chase groans. “Oh, come on. You said you were over the laptop!”

 

“I am, but it was stupid and actually fucked us over. I got us something we need.”

 

“Our parents are paying off the LAPD! How long do you think we’ll last before someone runs the plates?”

 

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”

 

“Kind of looks like it!”

 

“Okay, shut up, both of you!” Karolina yells. She’s hovering about five inches above the ground, and glowing a little—Chase isn’t sure if she’s being intentionally dramatic, or if she’s just losing control of her abilities again, but either way, it’s still pretty effective at catching him off his guard. He stills, and he hears Alex sigh.

 

“Chase has a point, Alex,” Nico says, quietly. She reaches out to tug Karolina to the ground gently. “It’s not exactly inconspicuous. Especially when it’s registered to Chase’s dad.”

 

Alex sighs and leans over to open the book bag he’d set on the ground, holding it open for everyone to see.

 

“I have plates,” he said, quietly. “We’ll switch them out every few days, and be careful how we rotate them. I already switched the original, we can find somewhere safe to ditch it later. And I have a forged registration to the car—”

 

“Which only helps until the second a cop asks for your ID,” Gert says. Her arms are angrily crossed over her chest, but Chase can hear the way her voice shakes.

 

“I have that covered too,” Alex says, giving them all a smug smile. “Fake plates, fake registration, fake ID.”

 

Chase is resolutely ignoring the ugly impulse to knock that look off of his face. He doesn’t do that kind of thing. He’s not that kind of person. He’s _not_.

 

“That’s actually pretty smart,” Molly says, quietly. She’s been sitting a little off from the rest of them; Old Lace has been curled around her protectively since they’d first realized Alex was missing. Again. Chase takes a deep breath.

 

“I’m not so sure about that,” Chase says, his voice low. “How easy is it to get all of that crap, Wilder? Do you want to tell us where you got it? Or where you got all of that fucking money, for that matter?”

 

“I told you guys,” he says, tightly. “I made a call to a friend. That same friend helped me out with the Leapfrog.”

 

“What friend?” he says, frustratedly. “Last I checked, every friend you have is right here. Who the hell do you know who can hand you a shit load of cash and help you steal from Tech Jesus' private collection?”

 

“It’s safer if you guys don’t know. I’ve told you, like, a thousand times.”

 

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” he glares. “God. This whole thing is like a game to you, isn’t it?”

 

“Chase—” Karolina cuts in, soothingly. He ignores her; this has been building for over a week now, and he’s not in the fucking mood to be placated.

 

“No,” he snaps. “He’s been playing detective this whole time, and he doesn’t get it. This isn’t just some crazy shit that brought us all back together. It’s dangerous, and we could all go to jail, and who knows what they’ll do to Molly—”

 

“ _C_ _hase_ ,” Gert interrupts him this time, her voice stern as she wraps her fingers around her sister’s wrist. Molly looks scared, and Gert looks both sad and furious. Nico looks lost and Karolina looks like she’s on the verge of tears.

 

Alex stands in front of him, stoic and righteous.

 

He can’t really ignore it or push it down anymore: he is so fucking angry. He wants to hit Alex, and he wants to keep yelling, and he wants the furious thrumming in his veins to stop.

 

He doesn’t do any of it. He doesn’t even kick the tires of the stupid fucking car.

 

“I need some space,” he mutters instead, and does his best to not actually stomp as he walks off into the woods. Once he’s far enough that he can barely hear the rest of them, he kicks at the ground, rustling up a pretty fucking impressive cloud of dirt and twig. It helps a little, so he does it again and again until his heart is pounding a little less. When he’s done, he settles down on the ground, cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.

 

He doesn’t know how long it’s been when he finally hears Old Lace noisily making her way to him. She nudges his shoulder; she probably thinks she’s being gentle, but she’s a _fucking dinosaur_ , so he nearly falls over, catching himself with a hand to the ground. When he looks up, Gert is standing in front of him, an unimpressed look on her face. He rolls his eyes. A defense mechanism.

 

“Did you draw the short straw, or did you volunteer to give me the toxic masculinity lecture?”

 

Gert rolls her eyes and sits down next to him. He watches her while Old Lace settles in on his other side; she looks like she’s carefully weighing what she wants to say, which kind of freaks him out, if he’s being honest. As far as he can tell, Gert usually just says whatever the hell she wants to, and it usually works for her. Finally, she meets his eyes.

 

“We have to decide if we’re a family,” she says, her voice low but steady, “Or just passengers on the same flight out of hell.”

 

“Real poetic, Gert. Tell it to Wilder,” he grumbles, sighing a little.

 

“Do you actively try to miss the point, or does it just come naturally?”

 

Chase rolled his eyes. “Okay. What’s the point, Gert?”

 

“The point is that yeah, Alex did something dumb, and he’s being really secretive right now. I don’t like it, none of us do, but I at least trust that he’s one of us.”

 

Chase frowns. “What? I know that.”

 

“Then what the hell were you accusing him of back there?”

 

“I wasn’t accusing him of anything,” he mutters. “Fuck. Does he think that?”

 

“No. I don’t know,” she sighed. “He went off in the other direction after you did. Because you’re both little pissbabies,” she says, pointedly.

 

He scrubs his hands over his face, trying to gather the words together in a way that’ll make sense to her. He’s not very good at that; usually, whatever he’s feeling bubbles up so fast he doesn’t know how to push it down long enough to think. But he’s pretty sure he needs to start trying if they’re going to keep living like this.

 

“I don’t want him to get hurt. I don’t want any of us to get hurt,” he says, finally, letting the words form the shape of what he’s feeling. Gert shifts a little beside him, her arm pressing against his enough that he can feel the goosebumps on her skin. “I trust him. So if he’s hiding shit from us, it’s because he knows we’ll tell him it’s stupid. And if he’s doing stupid shit, and we can’t stop him or at least back him up–”

 

“He might get hurt, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it,” she finishes. He looks at her, blinking, and she grins at him wryly. “Control issues are a cornerstone of my anxiety. We’re very well acquainted.”

 

He smiles back at her; he feels steadier now. He doesn’t really want to examine why she can do that to him, because he’s sort of tired as shit from being angry before, but they’ll get to it eventually. That, at least, feels like a sure thing.

 

“Thanks for coming after me,” he says instead. She shrugs.

 

“I drew the short straw,” she says, evenly, but her lips quirk up a little at the edges, and he doesn’t believe her. He grins.

 

“I guess I should go talk to Alex,” he mumbles.

 

“If you think you’re both done with your dick measuring contest,” she mutters, nudging his side.

 

He grins. “I mean, if you want to grab the x-ray goggles–”

 

“Oh my God,” she says, shoving him a little as he laughs. Her cheeks are just barely pink and she scrambles up, brushing dirt off of her legs as Old Lace perks up, alert because Gert is. That’s still pretty cool, honestly.

 

“I’m just saying, I think we both know I’d be a pretty solid contender.”

 

“La la la, I can’t hear you!” she shouts, heading back toward camp quickly, Lace stomping along after her.

 

He grins widely as he follows her back to their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took forever and day, because I suck. Honestly, once I started writing it, I kept finding things I wanted to address with Chase, so it took me awhile to get this to something I'm happy with. Nico's up next, and hopefully, a lot sooner! Thank you so so much for all your lovely comments so far! 
> 
> find me [on tumblr](http://yorkesteins.tumblr.com/) being runaways garbage.


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